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Low Carbon Football Stadium Made of Sustainably Sourced Wood

Date:08-Nov-16Author: David Rowlinson

Forest Green Rovers Stadium

Forest Green Rovers may only play in the fifth tier of the UK's soccer pyramid, but the team will soon have facilities up there with the very best. It has appointed Zaha Hadid Architects to construct a low-carbon stadium made almost entirely of sustainably sourced wood.

"The importance of using wood is not only that it's a naturally occurring material, it has very low carbon content, about as low as it gets for a building material," said Dale Vince, chairman of Forest Green Rovers. "And when you bear in mind that around three quarters of the lifetime carbon impact of any stadium comes from its building materials, you can see why that's so important, and it's why our new stadium will have the lowest carbon content of any stadium in the world."

The stadium is designed to be carbon neutral or carbon negative and will have its own renewable energy generation facilities on-site.

Located in Stroud in southwest England, the stadium will initially accommodate up to 5,000 fans, but there is potential to increase the capacity to 10,000. Construction is expected to begin in late 2017 or early 2018 and take two years to complete.